[gruez]

>And yet they sure seem to cater a lot of lunches and dinners,

Those are taxed at 50% rate, specifically for this reason

https://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b#en_US_2025_publink1000...

>pick up the costs for large corporate events

define "costs"?

>pay for suites at event venues, and fly executives around the world in private jets.

If it's for legitimate corporate purposes, I don't see the issue, because as a contractor you can do the same deduction. And while I'm sure there's some non-zero amount of improper expensing going on, the amount relative to income taxes paid by the employee makes this a non-issue in practicality. The IRS has better things to worry about than grilling a company on whether some executive's 1 week stay at a $500/night hotel (tax value: $3500) was a proper expense or not, when the executive makes $500k+ TC.

[mulmen]

$500.00 a night is $182,500.00 per year. That’s 20% of comp. What “better thing” does the IRS have to do? I don’t disagree with you that the IRS has limited time and resources and should maximize their impact but comparing a nightly expense with annual income doesn’t make that case.